Profile

David Stout teaches in the Legal Analysis and Communication program and also teaches Legal Ethics. He was born and raised in Albuquerque and is a 1982 graduate of the University of New Mexico School of Law. He has been a practicing lawyer for 28 years, following a two year clerkship with Judge Santiago E. Campos of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico.

He has represented the victims of injuries from the fault of others as well as those individuals who have been wrongfully abused by insurance companies. His primary areas of practice have included products liability, governmental torts and insurance related matters. Stout is AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell and is listed in the peer reviewed "Best Lawyers" in the areas of products liability, personal injury and insurance law. Stout is a member of the American Law Institute and currently serves on the Member Consultative Groups for the Principles of Liability Insurance Project and the Restatement (Torts) Third: Intentional Tort to Persons.

Stout is a past president of the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association. He has been involved in the association's amicus curiae work for the past 20 years and has been directly involved in both the administration of the amicus committee and as a brief writer. He is the current chair of the amicus committee. He has also been the chair of numerous Supreme Court committees, including the Uniform Civil Jury Instruction Committee and recently the Committee on the Code of Judicial Conduct. He is currently the co-chair of the State Bar's Lawyer's Assistance Committee that seeks to help lawyers struggling with addiction, depression and other conditions that interfere with their professional and personal lives.

Stout has taught insurance law with Maureen Sanders ('79). He has been active in continuing legal education and has lectured extensively on practice-related topics, including expert testimony, professional conduct, insurance bad faith and many other subjects.

When he is not working Stout enjoys playing tennis, hiking, and baking cookies. He and his wife, Mary, have five adult daughters between them. Stout's daughter, Kelly Stout Sanchez, is a 2009 graduate of the UNM School of Law.

Courses

Advanced Legal Writing – Advocacy

Advanced Legal Writing will build on the skills and concepts introduced to students in ELA I and ELA II, specifically:

Knowledge and Understanding of Substantive and Procedural Law

Legal Analysis and Reasoning

Legal Research

Problem Solving

Professional Skills Needed for Competent Participation as a Member of the Legal Profession

Professionalism and Ethics

Written and Oral Communication in the Legal Context

The course seeks to promote a deeper understanding of these essential characteristics of an effective lawyer and will develop through a series of exercises a strengthened ability to perform the core skills of writing and analysis. The course will add as an additional goal an enhanced understanding of and ability to create a persuasive legal document. The focus for ALW will be on written advocacy across a range of practitioner oriented assignments that will include motions, briefs, and correspondence.

Students will receive a case file derived from a real case actually litigated in state district court. Students will be required to learn a specific and limited area of law that, although it should not be wholly unfamiliar, will require additional study and research. The course is structured around three briefs. The class will be divided into plaintiffs and defendants. Each party will be required to file a motion and accompanying brief. Each party will then respond to the opposing counsel’s motion and brief. Finally, each movant will file a reply to opposing counsel’s response. In addition, students will be required to draft practice related correspondence.

Elements of Legal Argumentation I (ELA-I)

ELA-I is the foundational legal analysis and communication course. In the context of a problem solving approach to legal writing students learn how to do the information gathering, pre-thinking and argument development that are essential to good legal communication. Students learn to identify legal issues presented by specific fact situations. They are given an overview of collecting relevant information, including an introduction to legal research. Students learn how to connect this information as they analyze a legal problem in preparation for writing both predictive and persuasive documents. Students learn how to determine relevant legal rules and apply those rules to specific facts to arrive at a reasonable conclusion in a specific case. Students practice organizing the information and their analysis into a logical and coherent structured proof of their conclusion and then effectively presenting the proof in a specific written or oral format to a specific audience. Students also learn to perfect the mechanics of their documents as they learn techniques for effective revising and editing. Assignments include short in class and out of class information gathering, pre-writing, writing and oral communication exercises as well as lengthier writing assignments. In addition, students are introduced to client communications and legal drafting.

Elements of Legal Argumentation II (ELA II)

The second semester ELA-2 course continues the study and practice of legal reasoning and communication that was begun in ELA-1. Students will have the opportunity to use their basic understanding of the core concepts and tools learned in ELA-1 as they complete a variety of both oral and written presentations. Focus is on argumentation and rhetoric as the means to building strong and persuasive documents and presentations. Students continue to practice the process of legal writing as they research, analyze, organize, write and revise litigation and other practice related documents. The primary context for the work done in ELA-2 involves writing briefs to a specific court. In addition to writing complete briefs, students will complete several smaller assignments focusing on specific skills related to strong argumentation and development of legal proofs. Students will also give several oral arguments and presentations in class throughout the semester. Additionally, students will be introduced to the role of ADR in client representation and will begin to learn about court and ethical rules related to brief writing and client representation.